Nicolas Winding Refn to Direct a ‘Barbarella’ TV Series

Nicolas Winding Refn to Direct a 'Barbarella' TV Series

In news that sounds almost too promisingly crazy to be believed, Deadline is reporting that “Drive” director Nicolas Winding Refn has been brought on to direct and executive produce a TV series based on the Jean-Claude Forest creation Barbarella. The character’s adult sci-fi adventures were first chronicled in a comic-strip and then immortalized in Roger Vadim’s 1968 film, in which the director’s then-wife Jane Fonda puts on and takes off a series of memorable futuristic outfits and is almost killed by an orgasm machine.

“Barbarella,” the television show, will be produced by Gaumont International Television and Martha De Laurentiis, wife of the late Dino de Laurentiis and also a producer of NBC’s upcoming “Hannibal” series. Dino de Laurentiis was working on a film remake of “Barbarella” before his death in 2010.

Deadline notes that Refn called Barbarella “one of the ultimate counter-cultural characters,” and he’s certainly an interesting and immensely talented director — it’ll be interesting to see what he does with a character who’s so of her era. Winding Refn’s also got two films in the works — “Only God Forgives,” which reunites him with Ryan Gosling, and an announced remake of another vintage sci-fi standard, 1976’s “Logan’s Run.”